 | | | |  | |  Friday 16:00-16:30
Sunday 20:30-21:00 (rpt)
Radio 4's weekly obituaries programme | | | | Contact us | | | | | | | | | | This week | Friday 28th March 2008
(Rpt) Sunday 30th March
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| | | |  | | |  | Neil Aspinall
Beatles road manager and music executive who has died aged 66
They called him the fifth Beatle – and Neil Aspinall had certainly been friends with Paul McCartney, George Harrison and John Lennon from a time before the Beatles even existed. He stayed with them until last year, when he finally stepped down from running their company Apple Corps.
Neil Aspinall was born in North Wales during the war, when his father was serving in the Navy and his mother had been evacuated from Liverpool. At the Liverpool Institute he was in the same English and Art classes as Paul McCartney who introduced him to Harrison and Lennon. It was the beginning of an association which saw Aspinall become their most trusted lieutenant and the brains behind the business empire which exploited the band’s extraordinary back catalogue with great financial success.
Matthew Bannister talks to Bob Neaverson who co-wrote the book At the Apple 's Core, and to John Lennon’s first wife, Cynthia.
Neil Aspinall wasborn October 13th 1941. He died March 24th 2008.
| | | Philip Jones Griffiths
Photographer who has died aged 72
Philip Jones Griffiths was a Welsh photojournalist who is perhaps best known for his work on the Vietnam War. His 1971 book , Vietnam Inc, had a huge influence on American attitudes towards the war.
He was born in Denbighshire in North Wales and studied Chemistry at Liverpool University before landing a job as a pharmacist at a Boots store in London. Whilst there, he was able to indulge his love of photography by getting involved in processing film. In the 1960s, he became a freelance photographer, covering the Algerian war in 1962, before travelling across central Africa. He joined the famous Magnum photographic agency, and went on to become its President.
Philip Jones Griffiths covered the conflict in Northern Ireland, drought in India, poverty in Texas and the legacy of the Gulf War in Kuwait as well as the war in Vietnam.
Last Word hears from Philip Jones Griffiths's Magnum colleagues, Ian Berry and David Hurn along with what’s believed to be Philip’s last interview with the BBC correspondent Jon Manel.
Philip Jones Griffiths was born February 18th 1936. He died March 18th 2008.
| | | Mikey Dread
DJ, broadcaster, producer and singerwho has died aged 54
Mikey Dread was a champion of Jamaican street music, perhaps best known in Britain as a producer of The Clash.
He was born Michael Campbell at Port Antonio on the Northern coast of Jamaica. Whilst at college in Kingston he began researching the history of reggae for an essay and met some of the big names on the music scene. The influential engineer King Tubby encouraged him to record original material. Mikey’s first single Barber Saloon was a blend of rapping and singing which became known as the sing-jay style. His follow up Love the Dread gave him a stage name. But it was his radio show which inspired the musician and filmmaker Don Letts to introduce Mikey to Paul Simonon of The Clash.
Michael George Campbell was born June 4th 1954. He died March 15th 2008. | | | Shusha Guppy
Singer and author who has died aged 72
Shusha Guppy was a writer and singer who was born in Iran, moved to Paris as a teenager in 1950 and lived in London from the mid 1960s. She was the daughter of a distinguished Shia theologian and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Tehran. As a teenager in Paris she met writers, artists and poets like Jean Paul Sartre, Albert Camus and Louis Aragon. She recorded albums of Persian folk songs, old French songs and her own compositions.
After marrying the writer and explorer Nicholas Guppy, the couple moved to London, where she remained, living in Chelsea after their divorce in 1976. Shusha’s first book – The Blindfold Horse - was a memoir of her Persian childhood. It was highly praised and won a number of literary awards. Her second volume of memoirs dealt with her time as A Girl In Paris.
Matthew Bannister talks to David Suratgar and the poet Christopher Logue who were both friends of Susha Guppy along with Iradj Bagherzade who was her publisher.
Shusha (Shamsi) Guppy was born December 24th 1935. She died on March 21st 2008.
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